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by Davechicken



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Kylo goes home, post-TFA
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 14:21:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6156412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Davechicken/pseuds/Davechicken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An explosion goes off sooner, and Kylo thinks there's still hope. Aboard the Falcon, fleeing the exploding Starkiller, Han asks for one last chance to help him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Home

Chewie and Rey were in the cockpit. Rey somehow spoke Wookie, so it wasn’t so weird. She also, apparently, liked flying. Kylo saw that, when he was in her head. He saw her flying the _Falcon_ , saw her flickers of happiness. It had tugged deep in his gut, brought out a **yearning** he’d tried to deny for so long.

Rey. Scavenger girl. ‘Nobody’ from a backwater sand-planet. More like Darth Vader than he was, in many senses. He was more like his mother; born to privilege, born to expectation. No wonder Han Solo liked her more than he’d ever liked his own son. They had that scruffy-edge-of-civilisation charm that he’d never have. A shared knowledge of what it was like to fight just to survive, that camaraderie of the streets that was probably just as much of a lie as the safety that wealth brought. Anyone could be lonely. Anywhere could be hell.

He wasn’t a diamond in the rough. He was a diamond cut to a high shine, but one that had been turned under lathe and saw to try to conceal the deep inclusions and fractures in his very make-up. Gloriously brilliant, but destined to shatter into pieces under pressure. 

Fitting.

Even Chewie liked her. Although Chewie liked a lot of people, most didn’t realise because of the language barrier, and the part where he had a temper just as bad as Kylo’s father. He threatened and he postured, but he was a big fluffy blanket underneath it all and…

“Hey.”  


Kylo’s hands tightened in his lap, his mask clutched against his gut. He’d picked it up, before they left. He’d had to. Even if he didn’t put it back on, he’d… _needed it_.

What did you say, when your father said _Hey_  like you hadn’t just been planning to murder him horribly? When you’d just been told to come _home_ , and you weren’t even sure if there was such a thing as _home_ to come back to? He tensed, and took a deep breath, and–

–utterly failed to lift his head and make eye-contact with Han S– with his _father_.

“Ben…”  


No, no, no, no, no.

NO.

That was _not his name_. Inside his head, something **screamed** , and he- and–

A hand, on his shoulder. The gesture so familiar, and yet not. When was the last time someone… Kylo looked up, and saw a face that was like his own look back down. Older, now. His own looked more like he remembered his father used to. He’d taken his place, in a way. Pushed a man to this, to grey and to worry-lines. He was his dad, but he was also… weirdly… not. 

 _I almost killed you, to make the pain stop_.

He couldn’t shake that thought, even as the hand continued to hold him, and their eyes continued to meet. The saber-hilt was… somewhere. Han had taken it, and removed it from his gaze. Kylo was grateful, though the gesture was symbolic, at best. There were any number of ways you could murder someone. You could push your thumbs through their eyes, or you could choke the air from their throat, or you could steal their blaster, or you–

“Ben.”  


“K…Kylo,” he corrected him.  


He wasn’t sure he could use the other name. Not now, not yet. Ben was someone else. Ben was someone… _better_. Someone _younger_. Someone **Lighter**. Someone weaker, who had given way under an impossible force. Who had cried in the night until Kylo came to save him. Ben… Ben was… Ben was someone else.

“…okay.” Han didn’t sound convinced, but it wasn’t shouting, it wasn’t yelling.  


It should be shouting. Yelling. Didn’t he understand? Didn’t he realise the gravity of this? Kylo felt angry with him for being so calm, and he shrugged off the hand. “You should drop me on the nearest inhabited planet.”

“Why?”  


“Why? Isn’t the part where I’m _Kylo Ren_ , Master of the Supreme Leader’s _Knights_  enough? Or do you want my list of casualties? Or would you like to know how I was two breaths away from– from–”  


“Son… you _didn’t_.”  


“Not the last thing, but the others.”  


“Yeah. Okay… come with me. Put that damn mask down, and just… come with me, would ya? Give me half an hour, and if I can’t convince you then… I’ll tell your mother it’s all my fault.”  


Kylo cocked his head in confusion. “But it–”

“Yeah, it is. You’re my _son_. Whatever name you choose to call yourself, you’re still my damn son, okay? And I should have - I should have tried this a long time ago. So give me that half an hour, and… and… then…”  


Han’s voice was creaking, and it wasn’t just age. Kylo knew the man was feeling torn, just as he was. He didn’t need to feel the flickers in the Force to know. He nodded, and put the mask gently down. It felt wrong to be without it, and his face was strange and open. He wondered why he’d taken it off, on the bridge. Maybe a desperate, last hope that his father would _see_ him, and… and when he’d heard the explosions, in the distance… when he knew there was still hope… when he knew that the Resistance would live to fight another day…

…he’d ran. Just like he had fifteen years ago. Ran back the way he’d come from, this time. It would be easier if his heart could pick a side.

Han guided him into the next room, and he kicked twice with his heel at one of the panels. It opened up one of many smuggling compartments, one that maybe only six living people knew about, and Kylo wondered what could possibly be in…

Inside were things he remembered. An old holo about the history of hyperspace travel. A model Y-Wing and an X-Wing. A jacket that he might even still fit into, although it wouldn’t close around his chest. Little bits and pieces of a boy he’d once been, little memories of a life he’d left behind.

“Guess they didn’t find this, huh. Or maybe they didn’t think it was worth clearing out.”   


Kylo felt his resolve cracking, and he wanted to run away. _Ben is gone, Ben is dead, Ben is no more. He was weak. He was afraid. He was in pain. He needed me, and I - I–_

He took a step back, and Han took a half-a-one towards him, before pausing. “Kiddo…”

“ _No_.” No. He couldn’t look at it. It hurt too much. It reminded him of - of -  


“You’re still my son.” Han said it more firmly this time. “I… I’m sorry.”  


“ **No**.” But quietly. Insistent. Begging.  


“You are, whether you want to admit it, or not. You’re still my boy. And I - I fucked up. I should have been a better father to you. Learn more about this Force crap, instead of get the heeby-jeebies every time you did something I couldn’t understand. Hell, maybe it wouldn’t have helped you fight off that _monster_ , but… I could have tried harder.”  


“I… father, I… I’ve done so many terrible things…”  


“Yeah, and I haven’t?” Han swallowed, and his hands flexed. Tensed into fists, then let go. “I’ve killed people. Mostly for money, or for survival. Killed a few because I believed in the cause, too. Did they all deserve to die? No. Maybe not even any of them. But I thought it was right, and… I should have helped you learn better. I… you know I don’t… you know… I don’t remember my folks. And Leia had the Organas, but no one… no one really tells you how to raise a kid that’s so much stronger than you.”  


Kylo didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t. He did, too. 

He understood, on one level. He remembered the feeling of utter betrayal the first time his father _snapped_ at him for something he hadn’t meant to do, when he’d used a sense, a strength that his father couldn’t understand. He remembered being confused when his father didn’t really want to answer questions, or when he brushed things off. He remembered the sense of complete **devastation** when he realised that Captain Han Solo, of the _Millennium Falcon,_ was as flawed and faulty as anyone else. His idol, with feet of clay. 

He wanted the perfect father back, the one from his earlier memories. But he was too grown, now, to ever believe in that again. Han Solo was a man, the same as any other. Flawed, and real. And it hurt. It hurt so badly.

“I didn’t tell you what was going on,” he admitted.  


“No. You didn’t. And I reckon you didn’t tell anyone, much, did you? Wanted to be the big, strong, brave man? Wanted to be a hero, huh? I always thought you would be. You were so _good_ , Ben. You were so much better than I ever was at your age. You just…”  


“Stop, please.”  


“Like hell I will! You _cared_. You cared for **everyone**. And you went from this kid who thought I was the best thing in the galaxy, to this… to this quiet… _thing_ that didn’t want to talk to me, that knew how to **do** things, and I just… shit. SHIT. Son, I really–”  


“I did those things,” Kylo reminded him. “I killed those children.”  


“Y-yeah. You did.” He swallowed, and Kylo watched in grim fascination.   


This was it. This was when he realised his son could never be _forgiven_. This was when he realised that Ben Organa-Solo was **dead for good**. This was when his training was complete, when the last voice of Light stopped calling out to him, to bring him _home_. And Kylo ached inside with the tear in his heart that told him he was _wicked, bad, wrong, evil, sinful, nasty, malicious, Dark_.

“You were a kid,” Han said, his voice a whisper. “You were just a kid. Which means - which means _we did this_ , not you. You… you were a **boy**. You needed us to help you, to help you see wrong from right. And we messed up, somehow. If we’d known how to… damnit! If we’d known what to do, maybe you wouldn’t be so messed up, now! And if I hadn’t blamed it all on you because I didn’t want to admit that _I fucked up–”_  


How did Han think this was his fault? It wasn’t. “I made the decision.”

“Yeah, and did you? Or did that bastard _Snoke_ make it for you?”  


Kylo flinched, and stepped back again. “The Leader–”

“Leia told me. Okay? She told me. She told me he’d been in your head, but she didn’t tell me until you’d already _gone_. Or maybe she tried, and I didn’t want to know. I don’t even know any more, okay? I just know he hurt you and I was **supposed to protect you**. And I didn’t. And Leia didn’t. And Luke didn’t. And every death on your hands is on ours, too, and if you don’t _shut the hell up_ and accept that we screwed up and want to _help you_  now, then– then fine! Let’s drop you off! Put you on some planet somewhere? Then what?”  


Kylo stared, unable to respond just yet.

“You go back to him? After he knew you came with us? Because you _know_ he’s wrong, or you wouldn’t have given me your damn saber. So you do what? Hide? Run off to the Outer Rim? Change your name again?”  


“I…” Kylo didn’t know. “I’m still a danger to you.”  


“My _ship_ is a danger to me. Everything’s a danger to me. But you’re my boy, so I’m prepared to take the risk.”  


That was just too much to process, all at once. Way too much to process. 

“But… what if he… what if he… gets in my head again?”  


“Then you come and tell me and Leia, and we get Chewie to sit on you, and we make you take sedatives until you calm down, and then we make you watch stupid holovids until we’re sure you’re yourself again. I don’t know! We figure something out.”  


Kylo wasn’t sure if holovids, sedatives and Wookie-restraints would work, but he’d never tried them, so he couldn’t be certain. And the idea of being… of being… _cared for_ … it certainly held its appeal.

“What about the Resistance? They… won’t be happy to see me.”  


“You’re the General’s freaking long-lost son. Of _course_ they want to see you. Maybe they won’t trust you to play cards with for a while, or to watch their six straight off… but you think you’re the only one who’s changed sides?”  


No, the trooper from the village on Jakku. He was onboard, too. Probably with the girl, because they seemed all but inseparable. 

“B– Kylo… just… let us try, okay? We miss you. Hell, you have no _idea_ how much we miss you.”  


“I think I might,” he muttered.  


“Come _home_. Just… come home. Give me a week. See how it goes. See if you try to murder me again… or if you just want hot chocolate and crappy holovids like you used to, when you were sad.”  


“I think it will take more than hot chocolate this time.”  


Han smiled, a little sadly. “Yeah. But… let us try, anyway?”

Kylo dipped his head, looked at his feet, and… nodded. “Okay.”

The hand on his arm stayed, this time. Stayed until he relented, and he allowed himself to be pulled in for a hug. He didn’t grab him back, but he did enjoy being held for a change. The warmth, the surety, the… _safety_. 

“I’ll make sure your mom doesn’t go over-board. You know what she’s like.”  


Kylo laughed, just a little. “I do.”

He was going home.

He was… he was going home. 


End file.
